Maitland was coming to see that a well-placed, impulsive insult had gained her acceptance with Lady de Wolfe, perhaps the most respected matriarch on the border. She smiled at the woman and, putting her arm around Lady de Wolfe’s waist, headed back into the hall with her.
They had work to do.
*
“Worthlesscow?”
Thomas broke down into soft laughter as his mother furiously shushed him. “Not so loud,” she said. “Mae will hear ye. Aye, she called Adelaide a worthless cow. She said everythin’ I’ve wanted tae say tae her all along.”
Exhausted and bloodied from having just returned with the bulk of his army from Coldstream as dawn broke in the east, Thomas had to put a hand over his mouth to stifle the snorts.
“Bloody Christ,” he hissed. “Did she really call her that? It almost makes this entire skirmish worth it just to have that come out in the open. And you called her Mae?”
Jordan nodded. “Of course I did,” she said. “’Tis her name. I like the lass, Tommy. She has fire in her soul and the wisdomtae use it. She’ll be a fine addition tae Edenside and help them recover from their troubles.”
Hearing his mother speak well of Maitland made Thomas feel rather strange, mostly because he wanted to agree with her but he couldn’t. Hewouldn’t. Whatever he was thinking about Maitland, he didn’t want anyone else to know, especially his mother. Something about Maitland de Ryes Bowlin made his heart beat, just a little faster, and he was still trying to figure it all out.
“Des thinks a good deal of his sister,” he said, the smile fading from his face. He realized he had to get off the subject of Lady Bowlin. “WhereisAdelaide?”
Jordan threw a thumb towards the keep. “Where do ye think?” she said. “She’s locked up in the keep with her father. It has been Mae and Tibelda and me tendin’ tae the wounded all night long.”
Thomas glanced at the keep as the gentle rays of morning warmed the gray stone. Shaking his head in disgust with the behavior Adelaide continued to display, he turned for the hall entry and held out a hand to his mother.
“Come along, my love,” he said. “Let us see to my men.”
Jordan stopped him. “Let me see tae ye,” she said, noting his shoulder wound. “It looks as if ye took a blow there.”
Thomas had nearly forgotten about it; the rush of battle had seen to that. It hadn’t even hurt until his mother said something, and now it was suddenly stinging.
“It can wait,” he said. “My men first, please.”
Jordan didn’t argue. He was much like his father in that respect, always concerned for his men first. Inside the hall, there were about two dozen wounded in total and perhaps the same number of those with small scrapes, cuts, and bruises.
Wounded were still trickling into the hall, as well as unwounded men who were simply looking for food after anexhausting night. While the wounded were segregated against the eastern wall of the hall, the able-bodied were gathering on the western end, being served stewed beef from the night before. The beef had been pulled off the bone and stewed with carrots and gravy, and Thomas grabbed a slab of bread soaked in the stew as he made his way towards the wounded. He wanted to check on his men but, more than that, he wanted to see a certain Beguine who had insulted his dreaded betrothed.
God help him, he shouldn’t want to see her.
But he did.
The light from dawn was streaming in through the vents at the top of the hall and in through the door when it would open. A fire was blazing in the hearth and there were banks of fat tapers in the corners of the room, providing what light they could, and Thomas clearly saw Maitland as she bent over a man back in one of the corners. As he came closer, swallowing the last of the bread in his mouth, he realized that she was feeding the wounded man something out of a bowl.
For a moment, he simply watched her. She had fluid movements, so lovely and graceful, and it occurred to him that the sight of her lightened his spirit somehow. If he could come back from a battle to her sweet face for the rest of his life, he would be a happy man. Maybe his mother really had been correct; the right womanwouldchange his mind. He didn’t even really know Maitland, and he’d surely not spent an overly long amount of time with her, but his instincts told him that she was worth knowing.
But there was also the little matter of that unpleasant woman in the keep.
God, what a mess this all was.
“My lady?” he said, making his presence known. “My mother says you have been helping her with the wounded. I would like to personally thank you for your assistance.”
Maitland turned her face to him. Even having been up all night, she still looked lovely. Somewhere during the night, she’d taken the wimple around her head and rolled it into a strip, using it to tie her hair back tightly, away from the wounds she was working on. She had dark, shiny hair, and he could see the curls at the end of it, dragging along the floor of the hall as she sat on her bottom.
“It is my pleasure, my lord,” she said, a twinkle in her weary eyes. But that twinkle vanished when she saw the blood on his shoulder, near his neck, and the damaged mail. In fact, there was blood all in his hair and, quickly, she stood up. “You are wounded!”
Thomas put his hand up to the swipe on his shoulder and was about to brush her off as he had his mother, but the look in her eyes stopped the words on his lips. Maybe he wouldn’t brush it off at all.
A little attention from a lovely young woman wouldn’t be such a bad thing…would it?
“Aye,” he said after a moment. “I should probably have it looked at. Can you spare the time?”
